If you happen to requested me to put on AR glasses on prime of my common glasses for a brief trip in a stunning BMW EV, I’d’ve mentioned, “No thanks.” However now I’m glad I agreed as a result of I can nearly consider that augmented actuality is smart, not only for passengers however as a instrument for drivers, as nicely.
Right here in a parking zone at CES 2024 the place automotive tech is all over the place, I hopped into an all-electric BMW iX M60 and donned a pair of Xreal Air 2 augmented actuality glasses. I needed to put on them over my common eyeglasses as a result of there was no time to place the correct prescription lenses in them. Fortuitously, the AR impact nonetheless appeared fairly good.
As quickly as I put the frames on, I may see a small round platform sitting on the sprint. For this expertise, BMW put me within the passenger seat whereas a BMW rep drove (with out AR glasses) and defined the expertise to me. For this demo, we drove out of the lot, away from the conference middle, and onto the streets of Las Vegas.
What I noticed by way of the glasses shocked and sometimes delighted me. It’s the subtlety that makes it work. There’s nothing that jumps as much as occlude your imaginative and prescient. As a substitute, the largely translucent objects seem on the dashboard or the highway forward. To be clear, although, AR parts can seem anyplace you look: out the windshield, out the passenger window. I forgot generally that everybody else couldn’t see what the Xreal Air 2 AR glasses had been displaying me.
All through our journey, I noticed inexperienced arrows directing me to my vacation spot; they’d curve left or proper to alert me of an upcoming flip (comically, the driving force who was not carrying the glasses managed to overlook certainly one of our turns). The thought right here is that this steering may exchange your customary GPS navigation system. Granted, the system is linked to a cellphone that’s linked to the automotive. Nonetheless, I didn’t should look down at one other display screen to see the place I used to be going.
Along with the path queues, there have been these-colored blocks that would seem on both facet of the automotive. They had been inexperienced for all clear, yellow for warning, orange for hazard, and purple for cease. If there was a cease signal forward, an AR one would seem earlier than me. There have been digital warning cones to warn me of potholes and different highway hazards.
The system additionally accommodates video games and leisure in your passengers. At one level, the sky began raining digital cube (BMW preprogrammed and timed these engagements to particular moments in our journey). Later there was a recreation the place digital poker chips had been flying towards me. I earned factors for each I managed to, with my gaze, information by way of a floating ring. I solely managed 6 factors.
On the digital management panel, there was a media button. Once we triggered it, the BMW rep instructed me to flip down my visor. On the floor was a digital display screen that appeared like an 80-inch show sitting about 3 toes away from me, and it was enjoying, naturally, a BMW industrial. I used to be shocked and appreciated the picture high quality.
On the finish of our journey, we pulled again into the lot, and in entrance of me, I may see steering to a charging station. The AR graphic confirmed how a lot cost I had left and the way lengthy it could take to recharge the iX M60.
One factor I seen about all of the imagery is that it understood the surfaces and chassis of the EV. BMW instructed me that it was not utilizing the Xreal’s digital camera to learn the surfaces. As a substitute, they’d added a cabin digital camera to observe the place I used to be wanting correctly positioning the management panel on the sprint, and managing occlusion.
The latter is what actually sells the AR impact. These steering blocks I discussed disappear behind the sting of the automotive hood. In different phrases, they seem as actual objects and never in some illusion-crushing and distracting type the place I may oddly see the whole blocks by way of the physique of the automotive.
That is the important thing to profitable AR in a automotive. It not solely has to supply an augmented expertise, nevertheless it has to work with and make sense in the actual world.
BMW has no present plans so as to add AR glasses or clear AR windshields to all its EVs. For now, it’s a analysis undertaking and what they be taught right here could inform the way forward for your driving expertise.
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